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“Diversity is a survival factor for the community itself. A community of a hundred million species can survive anything short of total global catastrophe. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature drop of twenty degrees—which would be a lot more devastating than it sounds. Within that hundred million will be thousands that could survive a global temperature rise of twenty degrees. But a community of a hundred species or a thousand species has almost no survival value at all.”
― Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

“The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own”

“Stupidity has a certain charm - ignorance does not”

“My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can”

“It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity”

“Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.”
― Frank Zappa

“If you can’t discover what’s keeping you in, the will to get out soon becomes confused and ineffectual - "Ishmael”
― Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

“One thing I know people will say to me is ‘Are you suggesting we go back to being hunter-gatherers?’” “That of course is an inane idea,” Ishmael said. “The Leaver life-style isn’t about hunting and gathering, it’s about letting the rest of the community live—and agriculturalists can do that as well as hunter-gatherers.”
― Daniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit